What capture card to get to get clear feed?

[Universal_Love]

I love OBS ... have been using it for years for various things

Please be so kind to advise what HDMI video capture card should I get to get as clear of a video as possible?

1920x1080 is the output from my Win 10 laptop - it is going to another Win 10 laptop - I want to use it as a second monitor
in short my cards only give me the

Video Format: "MIPEG"

option
but I think I want and need

Video Format: "YUY2"

from
Win 10 (HP Elite G7) (screen is 1920x1200 - but I'm outputting to HDMI as a second monitor as 1920x1080)

to
Win 10 (Surface Laptop 2 Model 1769) (default resolution 2256 x 1504) I have Win 10 scaling set at 100% to get true

when I try various cards that I had - 3 so far they all produce not such a clear feed, especially for text

maybe it's my software setup

I do have the latest OBS and do follow the instructions:

Resolution/FPS Type "Custom"
Resolution "1920x1080"
FPS 60 BUT I do not have that option - I have: "Match Output FPS, Highest FPS, 30, 29.97 NTSC, 25, 24 film, 20, 15, 10,
Video Format: "YUY2" - BUT I have only "MIJPEG" - maybe this is the problem
Color Space Default
Color Range Default
Buffering: Auto-Detect

I'm pretty sure it - issue of getting only Video Format: "MIPEG" and not Video Format: "YUY2"

so far I have tried these cheap cards

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

what should I get? or do?
thank you

 

[AaronD]

Yeah, cheap cards are probably not going to work. I wouldn't be surprised if it's even the same cheap chip in all of them (economy of scale), and the differences in functionality (what's broken about *this* one) are the result of haphazard mistakes in the surrounding circuit design or manufacturing. Not to mention that that chip is actually USB *2*, NOT USB 3 like the connector and all the hype about it. The USB 3 pins are there for the visuals, but not hooked up. Just don't.

And yes, MJPEG is dirt cheap, both in terms of licensing and processing power. And it's not very efficient in terms of quality per bitrate. It's simply a JPG still image of each frame, with no knowledge of the other frames. Proper video encoding takes advantage of the similarity between frames to dramatically increase its efficiency...but it takes a lot more effort to do that, and some encoders have not-so-attractive licenses too.

That said though, a capture card shouldn't be encoding/compressing at all! The cheap ones have to (and they use a terrible cheap method as mentioned previously) because they can't cram all of that data through the slow connection that they're actually limited to.

Anyway, set a minimum price of about $60 for a single-input USB 3 capture, and then look for name brands. Expect to spend about $80 to $120, depending on the market at the moment. Any name brand should be fine.